From out of the shadows

the mugger brandished his weapon,

a desperate poet in need of a rhyme,

shunned by society, he thrust his

ill thought out Haiku

and grinned blackened teeth.

Call that a poem?,

enquired the mugger’s late-night target

and slowly drew out the epic

he had been working on

for twenty years, with unfolding

plot and elaborate narrative

weaved throughout time,

imagining gasps and the scent

of the Italian Rivera in his cold,

wind swept, storm driven sandals.

In the manic mayhem,

a drive-by Sonnet shooter with precise skill

takes advantage and locks on,

aiming high, he relates what the others

should have had done,

but too late, they lay

on the cobbles of the street,

bleeding words and lungs with images

of nonsense, injured, dying.

The shortest blade, the longest broadsword;

no good owning either,

if you’re not prepared

to make the final incision count.

 

Ian D. Hall 2018